Chapter T
by Celesta SunStar
Summary: Part of the Magnificent Seven Challenge Community ABC fic, the 'T' Chapter.


Chapter T

-Celesta SunStar

I only own some DVDs of the episodes, and not even the idea for this fic.

While it can almost stand alone, this is just a single piece of a much larger, cooperative story run by the Magnificent Seven Challenge Community several years back. This is an ABC fic, in which each paragraph of the assigned chapter must start with whatever letter we happened to be on. I managed to snag the letter 'T'.

The whole story in its entirety can be found if you search for the Magnificent Seven Challenge Community (e-fic address) and look between January and February 2004 Challenges.

It all started when Ezra blew a hole in Nettie's roof and Josiah was invited to a shot-gun wedding...

* * *

Traveling together, if not companionably at least without overt hostilities, Peso and Ezra had managed to come to a truce of sorts. It was however, not something that Ezra would be talking about anytime soon.

Truly glad that he had been working with Vin and his... trusty steed... Ezra doubted that if he and Peso hadn't been familiar with each other, that one or both of them would have been seriously injured in the truce-making process.

Trusting the ill-tempered horse to at least not toss him off on purpose, Ezra closed his eyes in an attempt to get his vision back together again. Though why he should be seeing double NOW when a moment ago the only real evidence of the concussion he was supposed to have was his minor unsteadiness and his hellish headache...

Then it struck him...

"That..." He was momentarily lost for words, and obscurely glad that only Peso was there to see the ignoble state that he had fallen into. "Mother," he continued, striving for a calm, if exasperated tone. "Xanadu? Again? Don't you remember what happened last time?"

Tenaciously holding his temper against the women who wasn't even in front of him; he closed his eyes and licked his lips as he attempted to bring to mind the exact image of the treasure map that Maude routinely carried with her. The treasure maps looked like so, and the criminal elements who would be regarding it, or in other words, idiots would be matching the symbols to... hmm...

"The erroneously named Vista Hills, to which we, dear Peso, shall make our way with due haste and precede my mother's immanent arrival to that unlovely area." Peso snorted in derision, or at least sounded like he did. Ezra ignored his companion's uncouth behaviors and attempted to find some landmarks to guide his way. A difficult procedure in the pouring rain. "Let me see, we need to go about southeast from here, which would be... that direction." Ezra turned his borrowed horse in what he thought was the correct direction.

The horse corrected him by about fifty degrees and they trudged off in the direction of the fabled lost treasure of Xanadu.

* * *

"The Hell..." Buck muttered as he glimpsed something completely unexpected out of the corner of his mind. He shook himself and grabbed Chris's arm, glad that they had momentarily lost the crazy lady and the idiot sons. He directed the hazel glare to the flash of muddy red in the near distance. "Hey pard, ain't that...?"

"That's Ezra all right," the blond cursed tiredly and turned his horse so that he could go intercept the gambler. "Thing is, I'd like to know what he's doing on Peso."

Turning to follow Chris, Buck chuckled as he tried to imagine the excuses that Ezra would try to convince them with.

* * *

"They left without me?" JD was trying to get all of the gear that he would need into his saddlebags at the same time. Needless to say he was not having much success at his venture.

"That gambling man just turned white as a sheet and muttered something about his mother and then grabbed Peso and rode off." Nettie confirmed. She knew that it would do no good to tie the boy to the bed, since he would likely just drive her batty anyway. She was better off with him somewhere else.

The sheriff of Four Corners frowned as he considered what he should do. What day was it?

The twenty-fourth, which meant that the bimonthly attempted bank robbery, was due any day now. As boring as town watch usually was, he probably shouldn't just let the bank get robbed, and besides for once Chris and Buck could have the hard job of locating the others and handling the assorted mishaps that always happened when the seven managed to go in seventeen different directions at the same time.

The sheriff in Eagle Bend still owed them for returning the Fenkle Brothers, he could probably borrow a deputy or two. Or he could just deputize Inez and Mary, he didn't think that even Chris would want to try to stand against THAT pair.

That was a good plan. Nodding to himself, JD mounted and tipped his hat to Nettie and started off towards town.

* * *

End of 'T'


End file.
